Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for my free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

WOW this book was so fun!! I am stuck between 4 and 5 stars on this one, but overall I really loved this book!! I was immediately drawn into this story of college roommates, Ben and Adhi, creating a computer that can deliver information from exactly one year in the future. I loved how the story was told through transcripts, emails, texts, and blog posts and gosh I could NOT put it down! Each time I sat down to read, I would be sucked in for an hour with these characters and the train wreck that was occurring. This story deals with friendship, science/technology, greed, love, and jealousy! Little did Ben and Adhi realize that this technology they were creating was going to wreak havoc on the future! It really made me think of Blake Crouch's books, which was super fun, and it was cool to be transported back and forth in time throughout the story! While some of these characters choices were crazy and horrible, I could not tear myself away from these pages! I would highly recommend this book if you enjoy epistolary stories, sci-fi, and books that grip you until the end!

Ben and Adhi are friends. They've been friends since college. One is extremely driven....the other is a genius with issues. A perfect combination to create something wonderful....and dangerous. A computer. But so much more than other computers or tech devices. Their invention can connect to the internet.... But, you say, almost any device including toasters can now connect to the internet. But....can they connect to the internet a year in the future? Ben and Adhi's invention can.....

Wow....this book had me thinking so many thoughts. If I could....would I? If it could be invented....should it? My ending answer was pretty much a very strong....NO. But I can definitely see the pull of such a device....people might want to know how their business will do, who they will be dating, stock prices, election results.... But could they handle the knowledge that they are going to die? Or that very bad things await them in the next year?

Sometimes what people want....and what their decisions actually bring them....are two very different things. What if people could see those things a year in advance? Oh, it could cause all sorts of bad bad things to happen....very bad things. But once you open that gate....can it be closed again?

Very interesting book! This is the first book by Dan Frey that I've read. I'm definitely going to read his other book, The Retreat!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Random House. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

The Future is Yours follows two best friends from university all the way to their start up company that develops new technology the world has never seen before.

I started this book with high hopes. The format of the book was really cool (the audiobook is fantastic too). The whole premise was really interesting and my intrigue was fueled by the new innovative technology that was created in this story. The book fell flat for me on a certain number of elements:

-The Characters: their motives made sense and worked well but they still felt like cardboard cutouts without any emotions on why they are doing what they are doing. I found it to really drag the story down and create stereotypical plot points based on the character's actions.

-The Plot: There didn't seem to be any tension or high stakes about what was going on. I think this was ruptured by the future already being set in stone, but it was also because the story was told in a way where you knew stakes didn't exist.

-The Takeaway: I got to the end of this book and I thought, that's it? I didn't understand why I had read this story and it felt like I had no payoff or message to take away from it. I think it would have been more satisfying as a novella or short story.

Ultimately, I found this book to have interesting details but its downfall was that it was too long and didn't give the reader a good enough payoff.

3/5

Two friends create a piece of technology that they think will be the next gamechanger in Silicon Valley. As they work on the details, however, their friendship and other relationships—not to mention the fate of the world—are put at risk. Author Dan Frey tries to keep the mood lighthearted but also keeps his readers at arm’s length in the unsuccessful novel The Future is Yours.

Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry know they have the next big piece of tech on their hands—really. Former classmates at Stanford, the best friends are sick and tired of working their boring day jobs. When Adhi uses his Ph.D. dissertation to talk about a machine that allows users to see into the future, Ben knows it’s only a matter of time before they start rolling in the money.

The challenge, of course, is building the machine and getting investors on board. Ben leaves Adhi to work on the details of the technology itself; he freely admits that of the two of them, Adhi is the bona fide genius. Instead, he does what he always does best: leverage personal and professional relationships to get the money and lab space they need to build a prototype.

Soon enough, they have the machine built and start looking into the lives of their future selves. Ben is ecstatic at what he sees. Their company, which they call The Future, is disrupting every convention. He and Adhi are being hailed as the next hot inventors to come out of Silicon Valley. The parties, the money, the fame and attention—it’s everything Ben has always wanted.

Adhi is a little more reluctant about the entire venture. Although he started out as enthusiastic as Ben about The Future prototype, looking into events one year down the line proves to be unsettling. Along with all the good that will come to Ben and him, there are plenty of bad situations as well. People die; governments threaten one another. Sporting events get disrupted, and the blame is being put on The Future and its technology.

The friends begin bickering about their goals. Ben wants to push forward. Adhi says they need to reevaluate. As they start disagreeing about what they really want from The Future, issues with the prototype begin cropping up. It’s only a matter of time, Adhi argues, before what looked like a rosy life ahead actually might become a horrendous one.

Author Dan Frey chose an unconventional format for the novel. Instead of a straightforward narrative, the story is told through a series of emails, text messages, news articles, and Congressional records. The result is that readers will feel like they’re mostly on the outside of the action. They might find it hard to drum up much sympathy for Ben. Adhi is slightly more sympathetic as a character but doesn’t seem like a full-fledged protagonist in his own right. His role is more to support Ben’s ambition and hubris.

Also, while the friends begin their company after their graduate school days, the tone of the book sounds more like Ben and Adhi are still in college. Ben’s devil-may-care attitude seems fitting at first, but as a character he doesn’t change throughout the novel. At some point, his frat boy approach gets tiresome.

Other aspects of the book are left sorely undeveloped. Ben and his wife, Leila, have a tumultuous relationship, but readers don’t get to engage with that part of the story as much as is warranted. Frey positions Adhi as a dark horse figure, but it’s questionable by the end if Adhi has really succeeded at much of anything.

The technology, too, feels too vague to cheer on. Readers don’t get much more information on it other than the fact that it looks more or less like a standard computer and allows users to see one year into the future. Characters use the prototype almost exclusively “off stage,” which makes it harder to get excited about the machine.

The ending—as in, the last few pages—unravels the entire story, which might frustrate some readers. The novel starts on a promising note but doesn’t end strong. I recommend readers Bypass The Future is Yours.

This book blew me away!! Such a unique story & the telling was as interesting as the story itself. I couldn’t put it down once I started & I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just say I highly recommend this one!!

This one just wasn't for me. I found the writing hard to get into and the story was lacking something... I couldn't connect to any of the characters. Not saying it was bad or anything, I just couldn't get into it. Which is a shame because I was SO looking forward to this one!

I loved this book so much! I'm a sucked for a good epistolary novel, and this delivered. I love Ahdi so much, and Ben is that perfect CEO ("I hear you, but..."). Truly such a good storyline.

If you could take a peek into your future, would you look? It sounds like such a simple question. Of course I would! Who wouldn’t? The Future is Yours by Dan Frey examines what happens when ordinary people are given an extraordinary ability and the cost that ability has on the world. 

Told through a series of text messages, emails, news articles, and television transcripts, The Future is Yours tells the story of two friends, Ben and Adhi, and their computer that is able to read the internet of the future. As their computer proves more and more successful, the two men become exponentially richer and more driven. Pushing the limits of their computer’s ability also pushes their relationship, and the relationships they have with friends and family, to the limit. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It brings up so many interesting and thoughtful questions about humanity and its relationship with time. When we think about wanting to see our future, we tend to assume that we will see ourselves doing something somewhat expected, just in the future. But what if you didn’t see yourself? What if you found your obituary? What if you found yourself the victim, or perpetrator of a crime? What if? What if? What if? There are so many what ifs that this book brings up that I couldn’t wait to find out how it would end. 

The Future is Yours is also an examination of the bonds of friendship and how much those bonds can handle. Ben and Adhi begin as mutual acquaintances but it’s their individual interests that bring them together. Ben wants nothing more than to be a successful entrepreneur. Adhi is a brilliant genius who can create intricate software programs. When Ben wants to pursue a future in the booming silicon industry, it’s obvious that Adhi is his key to success. As the two pursue their business venture together, the two become better and better friends, and as their success becomes more and more, their friendship begins to show signs of strain. Seeing their relationship grow and change from both points of view provides an intimate look at how they really felt towards each other, and how their relationship changes with their increasing success.

The novel’s epistolary form, especially the modern nature of the text messages, emails, and social media threads lends an intensity and urgency to the plot. Seeing the differences in how the characters write and express themselves gives us a clearer and more in depth picture of them as people. The novel is full of so many twists and turns, each one better than the last, that I was kept guessing all the way to the end. It’s another novel that kept my attention from start to finish, and I read the entire book in one sitting. 

Absorbing and fascinating, The Future is Yours is a thrilling look at money, power, and humanity. 

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

This is such a "now" kind of book, told in text messages and emails and so on. Yet the reader still gets a strong sense of the characters, and the tech is intriguing.

What if you could see the future-- just a year ahead? Suppose your computer could connect to the Internet 365 days from now and you could see headlines, search for yourself or your loved ones?

What could you do with that technology? Frey makes a valiant attempt, interspersing testimony from a Congressional committee about the tech, but I think he makes a misstep into the person lives of the protagonists instead of fully exploring what could go wrong-- and right-- with this tech.

In 2021, college friends Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry form a venture based on an idea that Adhi was developing in grad school. He thought he could create a computer that was able to collect, with perfect accuracy, information from one year in the future. Written in the form of emails, newspaper articles, blog posts and Congressional records, this book tells the story of this invention. The partners are so consumed with the science, the quest for startup money, threatened lawsuits and government hearings that they lose sight of how the computer might be used. Actually, they do consider the implications, but Adhi is a scientist with mental health issues and Ben is a perpetually optimistic entrepreneur, so they might not be the two best people to have the fate of the world in their hands.

I am not a huge fan of books written in this way, but I thought that the style worked in this case to convey both facts and emotion. The ending didn’t tidy everything up, and I liked the ambiguity. I would be willing to read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

3 stars

The Future is Yours is one of those books that I am not really sure how to rate. On one hand, I really liked the unique way that Frey told the story, through a series of texts, emails, articles and a deposition. On the other hand, Ben was a truly unlikeable protagonist, but not in a “good” way. Honestly, he was an egotistical jerk and I just found it very difficult having the story told in his voice.

The concept of this novel is great and that is what drew me in. I have recently become of fan of what I would consider “light” sci-fi (Think Dark Matter, Recursion, 11/22/63) and this book falls right into that genre. I also enjoyed the plot and the pacing of this book certainly keep me flipping pages.

The book definitely starts out strong and the premise of being able to get information one year into the future was really intriguing. But as the story moves along, it gets more into the weeds and kind of starts to fall apart when you realize that this technology really has no point and the end just didn’t work for me.

Thank you to Random House for my copy of this book via NetGalley

"Nothing can be changed by the technology we've created because only information is transmitted through time."

Well we all saw how "information" changed everything this past year. Or maybe I should say "misinformation."

The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey makes us look at ourselves and ask if you could read about yourself in the future and see who you are with, if you are successful, and most importantly are you alive, would you do it? For the record I would not; I have enough stress choosing what to read tomorrow.

Ben and Adhi are best friends and complete opposites. Adhi is a computer genius most likely on the Autism spectrum. Ben is loud, scheming and a cunning salesman.

Adhi invents a computer system that can connect to the internet one year in the future. You can see social media, news items, stock sales, and learn where all your decisions landed you in life. Ben immediately sees the fortune to be made with this invention. It is not in getting future lottery numbers but in marketing the system and selling it to the public. It will make them famous, wealthy, and powerful or so he believes.

Told through emails, blogs, texts, news articles and even congressional records the story unfolds to reveal an uneven friendship, greedy entrepreneurs, and many ethical issues. It is to the writer's credit that through this unorthodox storytelling method I was kept spellbound to the conclusion. I had no idea how it would end and what the consequences would be for playing with time.

Some may interpret the ending as open ended but I did not feel this way. I felt there was a definite ending but just like life it could change with just a moment in time. There are many underlying existential questions that arise from this ambitious novel. It is perfect for book clubs.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

If you had the power to look ahead a year into your future, would you do it?

Told entirely from written correspondence and typed official court documents, this novel posits a program that can, at it’s core, time travel. If all computers are linked via the internet, then theoretically your computer today can talk to your computer next year. A couple of smart startup dudes decide to cash in on this theory, with catastrophic consequences.

I loved this book. I alternated between the print and audio versions, because I just didn’t want to put it down to do things like work, and sew, and such. The audio version enabled me to keep going while having to do other things in the background.

I loved that it chronicles the rise and fall of a friendship and relationship, all while the world is falling apart. Will they be able to save what they’ve created? Are we all doomed? Only time will tell, and it seems that it’s already told us, and it’s not good. Dun dun dunnnnn.

It’s time travel, so you’ve got to leave a couple of things at the door if you’re going to enjoy it. I will say that I didn’t really notice any plot holes due to the parameters of the “time travel,” and if I did, I don’t remember them enough to detract from the story. It’s an original take on an old idea, and I appreciate that it walks the line of familiarity and novelty. It’s out now if you want a little more end of the world, a little less pandemic in your reading.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. It tells the story in text messages, interviews, emails, blog posts, and articles. I enjoyed this style and found it was easy to finish this book quickly. I thought the story was unique and I liked the main characters. However, I found it kind of exhausting at points. Though, overall, I still enjoyed the book and would recommend.

I'm going to be really honest with you. Sci-fi is so not my thing. I also don't really remember requesting this ARC 😂 But I'm actually really glad I read it!

Adhvan and Ben are best friends who found a start up company based on a computer that can communicate with itself one year in the future. So, back in last March when we were wondering "When is Covid going to end?" we could check out our Facebook pages from March 2021 and find out we are still stuck. 😒 Its a mix of quantum something or another (again, sci-fi) that allows this to happen.

The friends have to deal with starting this business, finding investors, figuring out how to use it, how to market it, etc all while dealing with the ethical and moral questions as well.

I really enjoyed this book. Yes, there were sciency things in it, but the fact that I'm not super knowledgeable in science didn't hinder the reading experience. I really liked how it was written in a mix of emails, texts, and legal documents. It made me feel a lot like I was actually involved.

Overall, a solid 4 star read. I'm glad I picked this up and I might just have to try some more sci-fi in the future.

An interesting novel told in a unique way through texts, congressional hearing notes, and emails. Two friends create a machine that can see into the future but this leads to some complications! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc.

Published by Del Rey on February 9, 2021

The Future is Yours is an epistolary novel. Text messages, emails, Twitter threads, blog posts, magazine articles, and congressional hearing transcripts are among the documents telling the story of a technology company startup conceived by two lifelong friends: Adhi Chaudry and Ben Boyce. The technology makes use of quantum physics to allow a computer to connect to itself one year in the future. Adhi conceived the idea in a doctoral dissertation and stumbled upon a way to make it work while employed by Google.

The two friends plan to market a device that will allow everyone to see one year into the future, on the theory that if everyone can do it, nobody can use the news of the future to exploit people who lack the same access. They call their company The Future.

Theoretically, the same technology could allow the computer to connect to itself at a more distant time, but Adhi can’t make the tech see even two years ahead. Perhaps humanity will be wiped out in two years. Perhaps there its just a technical bug. Ben doesn’t much care because a year is sufficient to cash in on the technology.

The Future Is Ours raises questions that are common to time travel novels. Can the future be changed or is our fate written? Is there a benefit to knowing the future if it can’t be changed? Is there any reason to attend an NBA playoff game if you can watch it online before it’s played? Does knowing the future actually shape that future? For example, if everyone knows that a stock value will rise, does that knowledge cause investors to buy the stock which causes the price to soar? Do investors engage in insider trading if they invest based on knowledge of future stock prices? Probably not if everyone has the same information, which is what The Future hopes to achieve.

A science fiction blog entry argues that A Christmas Carol was the first time travel story. Scrooge saw the future and earned a chance at redemption, but what of Marley? His ghost will drag chains forever, perhaps because he was denied the same vision of the future that benefitted Scrooge. So is knowledge of the future a good thing or a bad thing? Personally, I don’t want to know when or how I’m going to die, at least if the future is immutable (unless I’m going to die in an extraordinarily pleasant way, which would give me something to look forward to). But I digress.

As financial thrillers should, The Future is Yours investigates the ethical implications of growing or working for a billion dollar business. Most tech startups fail, in part because tech giants like Google and Facebook and Microsoft do their best to acquire or crush potential competitors. Ben and Adhi manage to raise investor capital by saying “we’ve seen the future and you’ll be rich,” but they eventually develop different visions of their company. Adhi and Ben’s wife (the company’s corporate counsel) are concerned when the news coming back from the future suggests that the company’s technology will cause widespread harm. Ben is focused on becoming a billionaire and pushes aside less immediate concerns on the theory that glitches can always be fixed later. But can the future be repaired?

The relationship between Adhi and Ben deteriorates for other reasons as well, including jealousy and infidelity. Ben sees Adhi as the tech genius who has no head for business while Adhi sees Ben as the marketing genius who has no sense of ethics. Their partnership seems very real, as do the inevitable forces that pull the friends in different directions. It doesn’t help that Google sues Adhi for stealing ideas that he partially conceived while working for Google, illustrating the extreme but common view of tech companies that they own the thoughts of their employees. A conflict between Ben’s wife (representing The Future) and her lawyer father (representing Google) adds additional spice to the story.

The novel also raises intriguing questions about the extent to which technology that has the potential to help or harm us all should be controlled by either a handful of wealthy business owners or the government (not that there’s much difference between those two groups). Some of the novel’s characters echo the call for limits on information technology while others call for making critical technology the property of the people. The military and the NSA/CIA, for the usual reasons, want complete control of the tech. The concluding chapter suggests that the novel is a cautionary tale of how technology can change the world in ways its inventors may not foresee and that reasonable people cannot control.

As a novel of ideas, The Future Is Yours should interest most readers who care about the issues it raises. As a financial novel, The Future Is Yours tells an entertaining story. As a novel of relationships, the novel reminds us of how easily money can get in the way of love and friendship. As a blend of genre fiction, the novel will probably appeal more to sf fans than to thriller fans (it is more a novel of ideas than action, although Frey does introduce an apparent murder mystery into the plot), but it should have significant appeal to most readers.

RECOMMENDED

Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry have a device able to connect to the internet a year from now, and its predictions are accurate. They build a startup company to provide this information to the world, becoming the darlings of Silicon Valley for the first time. But the future isn't all it's cracked up to be and might include the apocalypse.

The Future is Yours by Dan Frey is an epistolary novel, told as a series of e-mails, blog posts, and texts. Ben is the face of the company, as Adhi has social anxiety and might be on the spectrum. He's more invested in the science of quantum computing, while Ben is eager to prove that he can be a successful black man in Silicon Valley. With emails, text messages, blog posts, and transcripts from the Senate Committee hearing, we see the ethical concerns of the prototype, and how the information could be misused.

About a third of the way through the novel, we find out that the computer can only go a year forward. It can't go past that point, and any results found can't be changed. The possible explanations they come up with are errors in the prototype, which they throw out, the internet collapsing, which they also throw out, and a catastrophe so huge that the end of the world came. I find that such a drastic guess, and it certainly would not be what I think of in a case like that. It's dramatic and out of left field, but I'm still along for the ride.

There's such personality shining through the transcript excerpts, posts, and texts. There's more and more stress placed on Ben and Adhi, and they respond in the ways that they used to: Ben blusters forward and Adhi retreats. This leads to several surprises along the way, so that it didn't go where I expected it to. I found this to be a fun read, trying to imagine the actual events that are alluded to but not really talked about. As with any epistolary novel, that's part of the fun even as there is tension in the style. With the way the novel ends, that's part of the point. It can be discussed by book groups, because it's vague enough to make people interpret it in different ways and to address the ethical concerns raised within the text itself. That's a great sign for a thinky, literary kind of novel.

Adhi and Ben have been best friends since college. Adhi has worked out the technology to create a computer that can glimpse a year into the future, and Ben knows there's money to be made. The two get a startup up and running, and it looks like there can be no downsides to this - but what happens when the technology is flawed, run by flawed people? This epistolary novel, told in texts, court documents, emails, and newscasts, tells a story that I completely disregarded normal sleeping hours to finish.

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

I really enjoyed the concept of this book, as well as how it goes into a bit of detail about things like quantum computing. I absolutely loved the use of mixed media formatting here with emails, texts, transcripts, and more. I think it's a really fun way to tell a story, and it makes the book just fly by. This story definitely takes a darker turn and questions if we truly have free will or if everything is set in stone. The story does end on an ambiguous note which I actually liked since it seems to really suit the overall tone.

The main drawback for me was the characters. I didn't particularly care for any of them. They feel almost like stereotypical, terrible Silicon Valley people. One of our characters is obsessed with fame and making as much money as possible. Another is a somewhat reclusive genius who struggles to talk to girls. The story became more focused on the arguments and drama between the characters instead of the more sci-fi elements, so I didn't entirely love this change of direction. I can't help but wonder if all of this could have been avoided - but perhaps that's the point!

As a whole, I did enjoy my time with this book and would recommend it. It's a really interesting exploration of time travel. Again, the mixed media makes it even more fun!

I received a copy of this for review from the publisher via NetGalley - thank you! All opinions are my own.

My video review can be seen on my channel (around minutes 3:54-6:55 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwkc4Hn3-6I